The present disclosure relates to the protection of user privacy while allowing electronic devices to be tracked in the event of their loss or theft.
Laptops, and increasingly other electronic devices such as cell phones, personal digital assistants (i.e. “PDAs”), smart phones (e.g. BlackBerry™, iPhone™), memory sticks, electronic books, personal media devices (e.g. iPod™), gaming devices and personal computers, are being remotely tracked so that they can be recovered in the event of theft. Such tracking may be effected by sending location information to a remote storage site or an email server.
Proprietary information is routinely stored on electronic devices, and the need to protect such proprietary or sensitive data, and to recover such devices if they are lost or stolen, is self-evident. However, the privacy of the users of such devices needs to be taken into consideration when providing protection of such devices and/or data.